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The merging of technologies has left specialized gadgets far behind, with your smartphone now acting as a somewhat less effective substitute for your music player, camera, game console, and, thanks to mobile web browsers, occasional lover. Vastly improving the game-console aspect: iControlPad.

Shipping from Wednesday after a nearly three-year gestation, the easily attachable iCP outfits your smartphone with actual joypad-like buttons, making it so much like a real console, you'll feel compelled to call your older brother for permission to use it. The body of the beast is a black rectangular module roughly the same size as your phone, armed with a d-pad and double analogs, plus six face & two rear buttons, with handset connection handled through Bluetooth -- though when apologizing to the band for ripping out their molars, sorry seems to be the hardest word. An adjustable pair of side-arm "clamps" allow the thing to latch itself onto virtually any phone (iDevices, Blackberrys, Palm Pres, HTCs, etc.), while fully upgradeable firmware promises to keep it simpatico with all systems "current, and future", though how it'll interface with the chips implanted in our brains so the wealthy can command us to proclaim "Virgin Cola is delicious!" is anybody's guess.

As a bonus: the sucker also houses a long-lasting battery hook-uppable via USB, so it'll actually charge up your phone as you play, meaning after gametime with your blower, there'll be plenty of juice left to virtually get blown.